The standard way to check for list emptiness is to compare the
List pointer to NIL; our list code goes out of its way to ensure
that that is the only representation of an empty list. (An
acceptable alternative is a plain boolean test for non-null
pointer, but explicit mention of NIL is usually preferable.)
Various places didn't get that memo and expressed the condition
with list_length(), which might not be so bad except that there
were such a variety of ways to check it exactly: equal to zero,
less than or equal to zero, less than one, yadda yadda. In the
name of code readability, let's standardize all those spellings
as "list == NIL" or "list != NIL". (There's probably some
microscopic efficiency gain too, though few of these look to be
at all performance-critical.)
A very small number of cases were left as-is because they seemed
more consistent with other adjacent list_length tests that way.
Peter Smith, with bikeshedding from a number of us
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAHut+PtQYe+ENX5KrONMfugf0q6NHg4hR5dAhqEXEc2eefFeig@mail.gmail.com
Tom Lane
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